The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill

trivia, I’m sure it would be possible to concoct enough evidence to persuade twelve strangers that Nelson Mandela was a cannibal.’
    Wow! she thought as she studied him closely. That rolled off your tongue so easily, it’s clearly been picking up momentum in your mind for years!
    His voice was still controlled, but his single eye sparkled with passion. What was it he said he felt about his ex-wife’s behaviour?
    Contempt.
    Revulsion.
    Anger.
    Dismay.
    These were all necessary elements of that condition of self-awareness she was trying to draw him to. Perhaps by transferring these emotions away from himself to his ex-wife, he was showing her he was closer than she’d thought. His strained parallel with Mandela was also significant. A man of dignity and probity, imprisoned by a warped regime, and finally released and vindicated after long years to become a symbol of peace and reconciliation. It was as if Hadda’s denial could only be sustained by going to the furthermost extreme in search of supportive self-images.
    Hopefully, if he continued far enough in that direction, he would eventually come upon himself unawares. And then it would be up to her to direct him away from self-hatred into more positively remedial channels.
    Meanwhile it would be good if she could nudge him into a memory of Imogen in her fairy-tale princess phase. It was possible that by reliving that period when she had become the unique and obsessive object of his adoration, he might come to wonder whether it was in fact his idol that had fallen or himself.
    Even if that admittedly ideal outcome didn’t materialize, this was the part of his life she had least information about, for there were few living sources but himself.
    Now the passion had faded and he was looking at her assessingly.
    He’s got something else for me, she thought. She knew how habit-forming this business of writing about your past could be. In many clients, it went beyond habit into compulsion. So of course since their last meeting he’d carried on writing.
    But as what he wrote came closer to the most intimate details of his being, he naturally became less and less sure of sharing it with her.
    So, show no eagerness. Do not press.
    She said, ‘Wolf, time’s nearly up. I was wondering, is there anything I can get for you? Books, journals, that sort of thing? I should have asked before. Or something more personal. Something in the food line? Or proper linen handkerchiefs, silk socks, perhaps?’
    He shook his head as if impatient at her change of subject, or perhaps at the silly notion that there could be something he might enjoy receiving, and said, ‘We were talking about Imo. I got to thinking about her after I wrote that last piece.’
    She said, ‘Yes?’
    He said, ‘That stuff about feeling hate, I mean it. Or part of me means it. But there’s also a part of me that hates me for feeling it. Does that make sense?’
    She nodded and said gravely, ‘What wouldn’t make sense is for you not to feel it.’
    That was the right answer. He pulled another exercise book out of his blouson.
    ‘You might like to see this,’ he said.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said, taking the book. She opened it and glanced at the first page.
    And she knew at once she’d got what she wanted.

Wolf
    i
    I was a wild boy, in just about every sense.
    My mam, God bless her, died when I was only six. Brain fever, they called it locally. Probably some form of meningitis, spotted too late.
    We had my dad’s Aunt Carrie living with us. Or rather we were living with her in her farmhouse, Birkstane. Up there in Cumbria they still expect the young to take care of the old. Not that Carrie can have been all that old when we moved in with her. Birkstane was all that remained, plus a couple of small fields, of her husband’s farm. Widowed in her mid forties, already in her early fifties she was getting a bit forgetful. Also she had arthritis which gave her mobility problems. Normally up there supportive